From WCAG 1.0 to MWBP: Making content that meets Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0 also meet Mobile Web Best Practices

W3C Working Draft 26 May 2009

Table of Contents

Introduction

The groups believe this document to be complete and do not anticipate any major change at this point. This draft is provided as a last chance for review and feedback before publication as a final Working Group Note by the end of June 2009. See also Status of this Document in the overview page.Please send feedback to public-bpwg-comments@w3.org (with public archive).

This page is part of a multi-page document. Please refer to the “How to Use This Document” section for more information.

Summary of work required to make content that meets WCAG 1.0 also meet MWBP

Compliance with WCAG 1.0 helps go some way towards achieving compliance with some of the MWBP. This section provides a summary of these BPs. There are two possible levels of effort required, labelled for simplicity with the keywords nothing, something and everything. To summarise, if your content already complies with WCAG 1.0, to achieve compliance with the MWBP, you need to do the following:

Note on inconsistent links: Links in the “something” and “nothing” sections point to within this page. Links in the “everything” section point to the Recommendation. REVIEW NOTE: Is this too confusing? Suggestions for better ways to do it?

Nothing: If a provision is labelled “Nothing” then content that complies with WCAG 1.0 already complies with the provision and no further effort is necessary.The following list includes all of the provisions that are marked “Nothing”. Links in this section point to the relevant provisions.

AUTO_REFRESH, covered at priority 2 by 7.4 Until user agents provide the ability to stop auto-redirect, do not use markup to redirect pages automatically.

CLARITY, covered at priority 3 by 13.8 Place distinguishing information at the beginning of headings, paragraphs.

REDIRECTION, covered at priority 2 by 7.5 Until user agents provide the ability to stop auto-redirect, do not use markup to redirect pages automatically. Instead, configure the server to perform redirects.

STRUCTURE, covered at priority 2 by 3.5 Use header elements to convey document structure and use them according to specification.

STYLE_SHEETS_SUPPORT, covered at priority 1 by 6.1 Organize documents so they may be read without style sheets. For example, when an HTML document is rendered without associated style sheets, it must still be possible to read the document.

STYLE_SHEETS_USE, covered at priority 2 by 3.3 Use style sheets to control layout and presentation.

TAB_ORDER, covered at priority 3 by 9.4 Create a logical tab order through links, form controls, and objects.

USE_OF_COLOR, covered at priority 1 by 2.1 Ensure that all information conveyed with color is also available without color.

VALID_MARKUP, covered at priority 2 by 3.2 Create documents that validate to published formal grammars.

Something: If a provision is labelled “Something” then more effort of some kind is necessary to comply with the provision. All of the provisions marked “Something” are included in the list below. Each item in the list is a link to an explanation of what is required, in the next section of this report. For each there is a list of the provisions that may provide some compliance or are in some way related. There is no direct correspondence between one provision and another. In some cases, it may be necessary to make an extra effort or to consider a more diverse range of user needs. In these cases, the word “possibly” is used. In other cases scope may be different, giving partial compliance. In these cases the word “partially” is used. BP links in this section point to the detail section below; checkpoint links links in this section point to the WCAG 1.0.

Everything: For all other BPs, WCAG 1.0 does not ensure compliance and it will be necessary to do the work involved. These BPs are not related to any WCAG 1.0 checkpoints.

BALANCE

AVOID_FREE_TEXT

ERROR_MESSAGES

DEFAULT_INPUT_MODE

SCROLLING

TESTING

THEMATIC_CONSISTENCY

URIS

MINIMIZE_KEYSTROKES

NO_FRAMES

TABLES_NESTED

TABLES_SUPPORT

CACHING

CAPABILITIES

CHARACTER_ENCODING_SUPPORT

CHARACTER_ENCODING_USE

CONTENT_FORMAT_PREFERRED

CONTENT_FORMAT_SUPPORT

COOKIES

DEFICIENCIES

EXTERNAL_RESOURCES

IMAGES_RESIZING

LARGE_GRAPHICS

LIMITED

MINIMIZE

PAGE_SIZE_LIMIT

SUITABLE

Addressing Mobile Web Best Practices

This section lists each of the MWBPs that are related to WCAG 1.0 checkpoints, which are listed under “something” above. For each BP, the section title is that of the BP. This is followed by a list of the checkpoints that can help meet it.

12.3 Divide large blocks of information into more manageable groups where natural and appropriate at priority 2 possibly covers this best practice. However, the BP focuses on splitting content into smaller pages to address the limited memory, processing capacity and screen size of mobile devices, while WCAG is about structuring content in a more general way. Therefore, to fully cover this checkpoint ensure that it does not take too long to load a page and also the user does not have poor scrolling experience.